Scientists say Obama Mars cuts to hit research (Update)

Feb 13, 2012 by Kerry Sheridan

In this image released by NASA in 2011, a portion of the west rim of Endeavour crater sweeps southward in this color view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The budget proposed Monday by US President Barack Obama for fiscal year 2013 would slash $226 million from the US space agency's Mars exploration program, likely axing a planned partnership with Europe.

The United States will scale back Mars exploration under a proposed budget by President Barack Obama released Monday that has some scientists fuming over the risk of a NASA brain-drain.

The plan kills a deal between the US and European space agencies to cooperate on Mars robotic rover missions in 2016 and 2018, with a view to preparing to return samples from the red planet in the next decade.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden admitted that "tough choices" had to be made in axing the European deal, but vowed to restructure the Mars program so that future robotics mission could potentially be revisited in 2018-2020.

"This means we will not be moving forward with the planned 2016 and 2018 ExoMars mission that we have been exploring with the European Space Agency," Bolden said.

The fiscal 2013 budget, which is unlikely to face a vote in Congress while Obama seeks re-election, called for a $226 million reduction, or a near 39 percent cut in the US space agency's Mars exploration program from $587 million to $361 million.

Meanwhile, it funds other big projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope and a new heavy-lift rocket to propel an eventual deep space mission to an asteroid, and provides seed money for private companies seeking to replace the space shuttle which was retired last year.

The overall proposal is to give NASA $17.7 billion, a decrease of 0.3 percent or $59 million less than 2012.

"It is a real scientific tragedy and I personally believe it is a national embarrassment," G. Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University professor who served as the first NASA Mars program director, told AFP.

"Here we had one of the most successful NASA programs of the last decade and it is being effectively turned off."

Obama's budget pointed to the successful launch last year of the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity, the biggest and most advanced rover ever built which should land in August, as it called for reduced support for new robotic projects.

"It is sad for science," said Pascale Ehrenfreund, research professor of Space Policy at George Washington University.

"But you have to focus on the future. I am very convinced that when the Mars Science Laboratory lands in August and takes successful measurements on Mars that the situation might change rather fast. The budget may be reconsidered."

According to Bill Nye, chief executive of the Planetary Society, an association of scientists skilled in the search for alien life, program cuts could have devastating consequences.

"We are concerned that once planetary exploration programs are stopped, they just can't be restarted," Nye told AFP.

NASA currently employs the world's top experts in landing robotic vehicles on Mars, he said, noting that the recent failure by Russia to get its Mars probe off to a successful launch provides evidence of the danger.

"If all the (NASA) people expert in Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) on Mars have no missions and then retire, the program just cannot recover," Nye said.

Russia has been floated as potential partner with Europe in the ExoMars project should the United States withdraw.

According to the ExoMars deal made in 2009, NASA would have contributed $1.4 billion to the project and ESA would have chipped in $1.2 billion to send an orbiter to Mars in 2016 and two rovers to land on the red planet in 2018.

Tens of millions of US dollars have already been spent on the plans, according to Hubbard.

John Logsdon, an external White House adviser and longtime space analyst, said the United States withdrew from ExoMars because it "cannot afford now to commit itself to another multi-billion dollar project."

Other politically controversial projects did receive funding, including the elaborate James Webb Space Telescope, 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor, the Hubble.

The Obama budget urges that the project be capped at $8 billion. NASA said in December that the project was on track to launch in 2018 at a total project cost of $8.8 billion, after a series of delays and cost overruns.

NASA would also get $3 billion for developing new spacecraft and rockets to take the next generation of astronauts to space, after the space shuttle program ended last year, leaving Russia as the sole taxi to the International Space Station.

Big projects include $1.86 billion for the continued development of a Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket and $1.2 billion for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to "with a key initial goal of visiting an asteroid next decade," it said.

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I love space and I love the idea of space exploration but the US needs to make serious spending cuts. I think Obama did the right thing here, but I'll only be happy if similar cuts are made across the board, not just in the sciences.

..but I'll only be happy if similar cuts are made across the board, not just in the sciences.

riiiiiight... let's go the austerity route instead of practically solving the problem entirely by slashing the military budget to its (still hugely excessive) core. y'know, the place where trillions are spent and additional trillions 'go missing' on occasion? NASA hasn't even received a full trillion tax dollars in its entire 50 year history! it accounts for merely 5-6% of our budget.all the sciences needs a boost, not de-funding.

riiiiiight... let's go the austerity route instead of practically solving the problem entirely by slashing the military budget to its (still hugely excessive) core. y'know, the place where trillions are spent and additional trillions 'go missing' on occasion?

Come on. You and I both know that money is siphoned off to the Stargate Program. War with the goa'uld costs serious cash.

riiiiiight... let's go the austerity route instead of practically solving the problem entirely by slashing the military budget to its (still hugely excessive) core. y'know, the place where trillions are spent and additional trillions 'go missing' on occasion? NASA hasn't even received a full trillion tax dollars in its entire 50 year history! it accounts for merely 5-6% of our budget.all the sciences needs a boost, not de-funding.

The big picture: Cut spending to balance the budget.

That's what's important, where to cut the spending from is secondary. While I agree that scientific research is a high priority and should be considered as such when determining where to make budget cuts, it's more important that those cuts happen somewhere rather than nowhere. At the current time cutting spending is what's important, we can argue all day long about WHAT should be cut, all the while doing nothing, which is how it usually goes down, or we can just cut spending...

I understand that the household analogy is flawed when talking about the federal budget, but still... it's like a husband and wife arguing for months on whether to cut the second car payment or the cable and cell phone bills to make ends meet... while they are arguing they are getting into deeper and deeper trouble. Pick one, do it, THEN argue about it. Drastic action must be taken immediately, once we are back in the black we can argue all year about what deserves what for spending.

The White House did the proper thing in slashing funds for Mars exploration. Juno mission to Jupiter and Curiosity mission to Mars should also have been cancelled; it does not make sense sending space probes to Mars or elsewhere in search of lifeform when contact with extraterrestrial aliens has already been made.Science did not begin with Galileo's dispute with the Inquisition, and the Inquisition was never an authority on religion or religious matters. In fact, the Bible and numerous other holy texts worldwide mention contact with extraterrestrial beings. Space exploration is not about surprises on the next mission or rocket countdowns. NASA and ESA and the Russian space agency and Japan must limit space exploration to supply of International Space Station and maintenance of Hubble Space Telescope.

the US - consisting of ~300 million people - spends about 43% of the WORLD'S military budget (china being 2nd with roughly 1/6th of the US budget - Wiki). i think that's a superb place to start cutting 'drastically.' maybe then argue about what's next. might not even be a need for it after we've boiled our military down by half...to STILL BEING the most powerful on earth. pussyfooting around these figures just seems disingenuous, at best.

pfft.. ranked low by a 'starve the beast' proponent. i'll take it as an honor.

"cut a few billion here and there - ignore the trillions and trillions in one centrally localized bleeding wound = profit." good one. i truly hope our kids have the opportunity to learn at least RUDIMENTARY science while they're stationed for years in a foreign country wearing fatigues............

Mars is cold, dry and empty: there is nothing interesting, worth of investments the less. In addition, we just need to develop the cold fusion engines for being able to travel back. With current technology the managed flights to Mars can get one-way ticket only.

pfft.. ranked low by a 'starve the beast' proponent. i'll take it as an honor.

"cut a few billion here and there - ignore the trillions and trillions in one centrally localized bleeding wound = profit." good one.

i truly hope our kids have the opportunity to learn at least RUDIMENTARY science while they're stationed for years in a foreign country wearing fatigues............

You are manufacturing your own make-believe enemies and even then taking their fictional arguments to a ridiculous extreme.

No one here said to ignore the trillions... in fact I specifically and carefully mentioned that cutting a tiny bit from a science program is good because it is in the spirit of cutting spending, but that I won't be happy if similar proportional cuts weren't also made elsewhere.

You're being a drama queen and trying to start an argument where none exists.

People on here are far too quick to make assumptions, jump to conclusions, and become argumentative and hostile. No one comes here to discuss anymore, most people come here to argue, bitch, and rant... and it's a shame. The worst part is it is not limited to this little website, it seems to be an internet-wide phenomenon.

Mars is cold, dry and empty: there is nothing interesting, worth of investments the less. In addition, we just need to develop the cold fusion engines for being able to travel back. With current technology the managed flights to Mars can get one-way ticket only.

Do you sit around on this site waiting all day for an article that you can at least vaguely connect cold fusion to?

Do you sit around on this site waiting all day for an article that you can at least vaguely connect cold fusion to?

Cold fusion is way more important for human civilization, than all managed space flights so far.

Cold fusion doesn't solve the problem. Cold fusion releases heat in excess of what would naturally occur on the planet. Even if we mastered cold fusion and converted the vast majority of our energy infrastructure to use it we would end up right back where we are now in short order in terms of global warming. It's a stop-gap measure at best, in the long run humanity will have to learn to live on the energy the Earth receives from the sun alone, or figure out a way to actively cool the planet to counter the effects of local energy production.

Without cold fusion will will face WWW III. I don't see any way, how the unmanaged spaceflights could protect us against it - but I can see many ways, how they could bring it closer. The cosmic flight served as a tool of arms race mostly.

we are now in short order in terms of global warming

Global warming is promoted with carbon dioxide production, not with actual heat of fossil fuel burning, which is negligible. With energy of nuclear fusion we could control weather at the global level, for example with building of shield around Earth. Without it we can do absolutely nothing against it.

I'm glad they got the James Webb project back on track. It will find the Earth-like planets we need to concentrate our efforts on. The Solar Systems with neon in the same poportions as in our spectrograph.

It will find the Earth-like planets we need to concentrate our efforts on

This is just an immature, adolescent way of thinking. Without corresponding technological progress we wouldn't have even the money for maintaining of ISS at its orbit at the distance of two hundred kilometers from Earth. The reliable source of energy is crucial here. Anyway, for what the finding of such planets would be good for? Whole the extra-solar research is just a salary generator for few cheaters by now. We don't need it for anything in this moment. Such neverending waste of public money just slows down the building of really effecting economy. This is simply ridiculous way, how the people are thinking by now.

Cold fusion releases heat in excess of what would naturally occur on the planet. Even if we mastered cold fusion and converted the vast majority of our energy infrastructure to use it we would end up right back where we are now in short order in terms of global warming.

Not even close, that is not the mechanism behind global warming. Any released heat would just harmlessly escape into space.

We do not warm the planet. We "darken" it with CO2. The Sun warms it, then.

Cold fusion releases heat in excess of what would naturally occur on the planet. Even if we mastered cold fusion and converted the vast majority of our energy infrastructure to use it we would end up right back where we are now in short order in terms of global warming.

Not even close, that is not the mechanism behind global warming. Any released heat would just harmlessly escape into space.

We do not warm the planet. We "darken" it with CO2. The Sun warms it, then.

Look, I don't care what you rate me, the fact is nuclear energy is not a long term solution. Fissionable material will quickly become as rare as oil, and both fission and fusion release excess heat into the environment that will scale with our population. The global population is growing exponentially, fueled by our ability to generate energy, but the very energy that sustains a large population will also condemn it as it grows out of control. When we need 100x to 1000x as much energy as we currently produce and we have hundreds of thousands of fusion plants supplying that energy the waste heat generated will have a significant impact on the environment.

Like I said, eventually the human race will have to learn to live entirely off of solar energy, which will have zero net effect on the planets dynamic systems since it is here whether we use it or not.

Thanks orac for yet another 1 rating, you cowardly sleeper sock puppet, you.. I hope you make a post one of these days, so I can downvote it and get everyone else I know to give it a 1 rating as well. You might think you're powerful giving people 1 votes, but until you've made a post and you've received a 1 vote, that just makes you a coward who retreats to the shadows of a website where nobody even cares that you exist. Have a nice day, troll.

Sinister1811 I voted your silly Obama comment a 1 as well - that is the most it deserved. Can't vote a negative here unfortunately. You are on the wrong site if you can;t handle being trolled mate!Now if "W" had been launched into space along with his pa back when he was financing the Cocaine trade via his nose - imagine how many trillions of $ and thousands of lives would have been saved. The decades long wars avoided that have turned out to be the biggest cases of the Dog Barking up the Wrong Tree in the long history of Dogs Barking up Wrong Trees.

Imagine an Obama that didn't have to deal with the aftermath of so many disastrously WRONG foreign policy blunders and Hawk led funnelling of funds to military WASTE - hell, you may very well be half way to Mars by now.

The breeding reactors aren't viable solution at the current density of population - they're operating at much higher temperatures and pressures, than the "classical" reactors, so they're inherently unstable. http://www.ieer.o...heet.pdf This doesn't solve the problem of fuel for long distance cosmic flights anyway, until we don't want to allow the crash and explosion of nuclear reactor powered spaceships in the atmosphere of Earth. Try to imagine for example, what would happen if Challenger space shuttle would be powered of nuclear reactor - whole Florida would be a desolated area by now.

Sinister1811 I voted your silly Obama comment a 1 as well - that is the most it deserved. Can't vote a negative here unfortunately. You are on the wrong site if you can;t handle being trolled mate!Now if "W" had been launched into space along with his pa back when he was financing the Cocaine trade via his nose - imagine how many trillions of $ and thousands of lives would have been saved. The decades long wars avoided that have turned out to be the biggest cases of the Dog Barking up the Wrong Tree in the long history of Dogs Barking up Wrong Trees.

And I voted your nonsensical post a 1 as well. Because a minus 1000 was clearly not available. I was joking, you twat. What's your point anyways, dickweed? I assume you have nothing better to do than stand up for internet trolls? But, since I have voted you a 1 in return, then I guess we're even and I have no need to bother arguing with a halfwit who can't string a fucking sentence together.

The point I was trying to make, before you lashed out at me was that orac hasn't made a single contribution to this website, and yet, he votes everyone a series of 1s. I assume he is your sockpuppet, Bog_Mire?

I'm glad projects such as JWST and Curiosity are still going ahead as planned. We have plenty of sustainability problems back here on Earth that need urgent attention so while I would love to see NASA get double their budget I would also like to see a secure future set in place for the Earthlings.

Even exponential increase in energy consumption thus wont be a problem with breeders in the near future in fuel availability terms. By near future I mean tens of thousands of years.Plenty of time to either develop practical fusion or destroy ourselves ;)

@Sinister1811:The culprit is none other than the little weasel aroc91/orac, who I gave a proper drubbing to on the thread below. I've never seen a rating by aroc91 as long as I've been on the forum. In response, he papered the sites with 1's to "throw off" suspicion.

@Sinister1811:The culprit is none other than the little weasel aroc91/orac, who I gave a proper drubbing to on the thread below. I've never seen a rating by aroc91 as long as I've been on the forum. In response, he papered the sites with 1's to "throw off" suspicion.

Interesting. I grant you that point then. Still, releasing massive amounts of energy via nuclear processes from material on Earth will add heat to the planet that wouldn't naturally have been here... There is a point where this will cause significant detrimental effects. If we are talking about thousands of years into the future and assuming steady population growth and energy requirement growth I still say solar is the only real solution that will not ultimately create its own set of problems.

The breeding reactors aren't viable solution at the current density of population - they're operating at much higher temperatures and pressures, than the "classical" reactors, so they're inherently unstable.

Higher pressures? I think it is quite obvious that you dont know what you are talking about, as one of the greatest safety features of many breeder designs (such as LFTR or IFR) is their operation under atmospheric pressure.

This doesn't solve the problem of fuel for long distance cosmic flights anyway

Please, keep it real. But if you want to discuss science fiction here, then I think any space reactors will be specialised for this purpose and quite different from their Earthly counterparts. It is possible that they will be activated only after reaching stable orbit, so your Challenger-like scenario will not cause any significant harm, or they will even be designed to survive reentry.

greatest safety features of many breeder designs (such as LFTR or IFR)

These designs are using molten metals as a coolant. Extreme fire hazard with any significant amounts of air (oxygen) and spontaneous combustion with water, rendering sodium leaks and flooding dangerous. This was the case at the Monju Nuclear Power Plant in a 1995 accident and fire. Reactor design keeps sodium in the reactor pool and carries away heat for power production using a secondary sodium loop, adding costs to construction and maintenance. http://www.ne.doe...tion.pdf Try to imagine, what would happen, if Fukushima Daiichi would use such a reactors.

IFR is far safer than Monju design, prototype ran for 30 years without any issues afterall (EBR-II).

It was very small one, but the industrial sized reactors suffered many problems. http://en.wikiped...C3%A9nix During 11 years, the plant spent 63 months of normal operations, two incidents earlier in the year had culminated in a third, which triggered an automatic shutdown. You shouldn't expect very much from pool of molten sodium at the case of earthquake or even tsunami wave.

It seems all the commenters here care too much about politics and voicing their own opinions to even notice that Bill Nye the science guy was mentioned here! It is nice to hear he is still active as an popular science educator and as a member of the planetary society.

Apologies sinister - I didn't realise you where an inbred retard who retaliates to legitimate criticism by spouting off obscenities, acting like a spoilt brat and carrying on like a whining Nancy boy. It is, therefore, no wonder that you lack basic reading and comprehension skills.

Don't feel bad though - it is no fault of yours that your parents were so closely related.

"I do fully support peaceful Iranian nuclear program under international oversight." - ShotManTard

Why is America and Israel threatening to murder thousand of Iranians unless they halt their nuclear power program?

Because they are persuaded its a covert nuclear weapon program, and Iran signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty so it cannot legally develop nuclear weapons by international law (as opposed to for example Israel, which did not sign it).

I dont know why you ask this, its completely irrelevant to the discussion topic.

Apologies sinister - I didn't realise you where an inbred retard who retaliates to legitimate criticism by spouting off obscenities, acting like a spoilt brat and carrying on like a whining Nancy boy. It is, therefore, no wonder that you lack basic reading and comprehension skills.

Don't feel bad though - it is no fault of yours that your parents were so closely related.

Regards, The Puppet Master. LOL!

Your post made about as much sense as a ship sailing through the desert, and yet, you have the nerve to call me an "inbred retard". Maybe you should go back to school and learn how to write if you want other people to understand you properly. Fucktard. Or do you just like being a little bitch on the internet? Probably not so tough face-to-face. I'll bet you used your sockpuppet "orac" to give me a series one 1 votes. Wow, you really hurt my feelings.

Now I know I am dealing with a juvenile who cant handle criticism from randoms and is actually offended by randoms rating it down. (asides from grade 3 comprehension skills) You sure your mumma knows your playing on the 'puter? There are big people here you know. Big scary people with no fear of the dreaded "ONESEYS" Now run along little boy.

I would be able to handle your criticism if it was actually legitimate. But since it was just a bunch of nonsensical rambling, it just seemed like you were being a gigantic tool. I had to say something. I can't let some internet fuckwit think that they're right about something that makes absolutely no sense, can I? I'm probably older than you are, and you're the juvenile who started this whole argument to begin with. Hell, I don't even know you, but I wouldn't piss on you to put out a fire. In other words, I don't like you.

If you are older than me you really do have some serious problem by the looks of your silly comments here. I called out a silly comment of yours and offered an alternative view.You could have countered back, yet chose instead to go on a puerile rant. So there - you made your bed and now must lie in it. Your immaturity and insecurity is here for all to see. Silly boy.Personally I have no feelings good or bad for you - an anonymous poster. Well.....maybe mild amusement at one who could get so worked up over being down-rated by other randoms, and then only be able to offer the most juvenile attempts at slander instead of any sort of rational or logical debate.

But do not despair, you are not alone. These sites are just teeming with whipper-snapper trolls such as your good inbred self who haven't a clue.

"Alternative view" is that what they call it these days? I don't know, but you seemed to get all defensive when I made a simple JOKE (yes, it was a joke) about your bum chum Obama. And then when I mentioned the downvoting from "orac" who is a persistent troll on this website, you got all defensive about that too, and even made an attempt to justify trolling. It seems that you're the one with the issues here. Don't blame me for your problems. And keep calling me "inbred" that's really helping your case too.

With all this talk about energy procurement and how much more we will need....The idea that cold fusion will make war obsolete is fantasy at best. If we had all the cold fusion we needed (not that it's a bad thing at all...) doesn't that just broaden the profit margin of utilities or cold fusion producers? When will we have enough of ANYTHING? Maybe (more fantasy here kids, I admit...) what we need is sustainable POPULATION. What if we had zero growth for, say, 20 to 40 yrs. Energy and Agrabusiness could (maybe) catch up. Look at China... sure, they have lower wages, BUT their policy of zero population growth allowed them to advance a great deal ( along with currency manipulation and industrial espionage) "Delayed Gratification" pays BIG dividends LATER. It takes discipline. Without Zero Population growth our enviroment and ourselves will continue to suffer. Needlessly. There will ALWAYS be something to fight over.